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O'Connor: Pope should stand down
Sinead O'Connor wants investigation of 'lying' Pope
Sinead O'Connor has described the Pope's apology to the people of Ireland for the abuse of children by priests as "a study in the fine art of lying" and said he and the Vatican should face a full criminal investigation.
The Irish singer-songwriter, who famously ripped up a photograph of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live in 1992, gave her reactions to Pope Benedict XVI's pastoral letter in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
"He starts by saying that he's writing with great concern for the people of Ireland," she said.
"If he was that concerned, why has it taken him twenty-three years to write a letter, and why did he or the last Pope never get on an airplane and come to meet the victims in any of these countries and apologise?"
Referring to the cover-up of abuse going back many decades in Ireland, she described the letter's statement that the Irish church's hierarchy had operated independently of the Vatican as "a study in the fine art of lying and actually betraying your own people".
She went on to call for a full criminal investigation of the Vatican and the Pope, who "should stand down for the fact that he did not act in a Christian fashion to protect children".
Asked if she still considers herself a Catholic, she said: "I'm a Catholic, and I love God ... that's why I object to what these people are doing to the religion that I was born into..."
O'Connor came out as a lesbian in a 2000 interview with Curve magazine but five years later descibed herself to Entertainment Weekly as "three-quarters heterosexual".
